Buyout Boom? Not So Fast Say Carlyle and Blackstone

There’s been a lot of talk about Dell opening up the floodgates of private-equity deals, here included. But some big private-equity executives say they aren’t following Silver Lake like lemmings.

dapd

Carlyle Group’s co-CEO’s David Rubenstein and William Conway told Bloomberg TV at Davos that while the financing markets are open, they aren’t looking at big deals.

“Large buyouts might work, but the history of buyouts with $20 billion or more price tags has not been filled with a lot of success,” Rubenstein said. “You’ve got to work very hard to make those deals work and good luck to them if they pull it off.”

Still, Conway said it was a “good time” to be a buyer because of the cheap financing and “reasonable” equity valuations in the market.

Carlyle is not involved in the talks to take Dell private for more than $20 billion, a deal that could be the biggest in over five years.